1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a designated position detector that can designate a position on a display image through a space and a game controller for input operations, for example, of virtually shooting a target displayed on a display area using the designated position detector.
2. Description of the Related Art
A household game machine includes a shooting type game machine for shooting the target displayed on a television receiver with a model-gun type gun controller. The gun controller used in this game machine is connected to a game machine body using, for example, a predetermined cable and the game machine body is used through connection with a predetermined video terminal of the television receiver. Thereby, when a player has pulled a trigger after setting a muzzle of the gun controller to the target displayed on the display area of the television receiver, a scanning line at a surface of the display area is detected with a detecting unit of the gun controller to determine whether the target has been shot or not.
Namely, in the case where an image is displayed on the display area of CRT such as a household television receiver, the scanning line is displayed toward a right lower direction from a left upper direction in the display area of television receiver and when the scanning of one line is completed, the scanning line position is returned to a left end to start the scanning of the next line after one dot is reduced. One display image is formed with repetition of such operations as many times as the number of the scanning lines. One display image is changed over, for example, in every 1/60 second. In the game machine body, a light emitting position of the scanning line is always monitored.
A detecting unit provided in the gun controller has the directivity to detect only the light beam existing within the predetermined range in the direction of the muzzle and it is determined that the target is shot only when a player has pulled the trigger after setting the muzzle in the direction to the target and thereby the light beam of the scanning line is detected on the target.
However, the gun controller for the game machine of the related art explained above has a problem that it may be used in the CRT type television receiver in which the image is displayed by utilizing the scanning line but cannot be used, for example, in a display using a liquid crystal display unit or in a display screen using a projector in which the image is not displayed using the scanning line, and moreover it cannot be used also even in a high definition display unit for next generation in which scanning line timings are different.